WebsiteDesign

Is your website ready for 2015? Here are 5 of the new trends to look out for in the coming year. From Mobile Focus, Interactive, Flat, Simple, and Single Page Designs – stay ahead of the curve and get on trend for the New Year. Our easy to follow visual guide will show you the way. 

Via Lauren Moss

Beats By Dre Web Design Lessons
A friend shared the impressive NEWSJACK Dr. Dre and his Internet markeing team pulled off last week. Beats By Dre (http://www.beatsbydre.com ) has some cool web design tricks to steal too such as:

* Consistent images across channels (the Richard Sherman image rode the crest of the wave created by his "controversial" statements after last Sunday's game).
* HUGE RED BUY NOW Call To Action on the home page.
* Hero moves but does so SLOWLY so it isn't jarring.
* They've programmed their Richard Sherman page so his picture matches to every style, something I bet the site does for all celebrity endorsements (cool and NEW).
* Their social buttons are a little low for my taste, but they are well labeled as the "Beats Army" and every major social net is there and they are robust and fresh on all social nets.
* I like how they handle the colors too via the small swatches.

All in all a great ecommerce site in support of one of the best NEWSJACKS I've seen (see my notes on Dr. Dre's multi-channel attack of the web here:   http://sco.lt/8bJiDJ

Via Martin (Marty) Smith

This holiday season will be the Christmas of MOBILE devices. Here are some amazing examples of the art and science of responsive design.

Via Martin (Marty) Smith

Predicting the future is tough, but with the fast-moving nature of the web, it’s good to know what lies ahead. Craig Grannell talks to top industry figures about the web design trends you should be mindful of over the coming 12 months.

Via Martin (Marty) Smith

Web 3.0's Whaam!
Just as Roy Lichtenstein’s Whaam! 1963 seemed to blow abstract painting off the walls web 3.0 will change everything we call "website design". After creating Future of Web Design (http://sco.lt/7r6zkf) Haiku Deck I realized some shots were fired but not enough.

Web 3.0 powered by a ubiquitous web for people and things with semantic intelligence changes how we create websites and Internet marketing. Math will be a future web designer’s friend. 

Websites will float based on predictive analytics and real time behavior. Behavior responded to with tested creative designed for personas and segments to CONVERT is more Google-like than anything web designers create now.

David Merrill's siftables are the best demonstration of how content will become intelligently self aware AND agnostic to the kind of hubificaiton web designers practice now.

http://youtu.be/JP0w9lZoLwU Siftables

Hubificaiton is about bringing THEM to US. APP-ificaiton is about creating agnostic widgets. Widgets easily placed anywhere (as Amazon's mini-cart widget demonstrates here: http://sco.lt/4iahNZ).

Web 3.0's mobile ubiquitous web will reversing hubification emphasis on traffic density (bring visitors into a hub). Distinctions will chante too. THEM and US will fade in favor of relevant experience (the commons). 

In this context CONVERSION becomes an extension of an experience instead of the other way around. We rarely shop / search for things merely for the pleasure of the search.

 

We may start with one goal in mind and end up achieving a different set of goals, goals created on the fly in real time based on how the web responds to our journey, but our process feels like US.

Predictive analytics, personas, segments and an increasing amount of tested creative controlled by math means our unique feeling of US or ME may continue to exist, but THEIR sense of our next behavior mean this is a distinction without a difference. 

If you fit a persona, that persona predicts what relevant content you need when the feeling of having Big Brother on your should could be overwhelming. Mutual benefit is why consumers won't revolt.

When websites convert 40% of their traffic, as Schwan's does now, their efficiency trumps density. Efficiency trumping density describes Web 3.0 perfectly.  

Via Martin (Marty) Smith

Never underestimate the power of HUMOR or its application. Here are 100 funny 404 pages, the pages users get when something has gone wrong. The ability to turn a page that is FRUSTRATING into a funny gambit is the difference between a site that makes a few bucks and one that is worth millions.

Design for engagement means thinking about the customer at all times. Thinking about the customer means BEING the customer and not the Master Blaster Controler. Have fun and design fun in especially where its a surprise and you WIN.

Via Martin (Marty) Smith